Afterlife

6

Having exited the temporary housing building, Santino and Diego then began providing Fiara with a brief tour of the city, showing her how to identify certain buildings or structures of importance, such as the medical facilities, which could be identified due to them usually being white in color with a red cross imprinted on the side of the building, or various different forms of shops that could come in handy to know the location of, such as food or clothing stores, or even shops where they could get specialized weapons, if she wanted to become an IP.

Having concluded the bulk of their tour, Santino thought now might be a good time to bring up the buddy system, so he turned to Fiara and said, "I assume you read through the booklet as instructed," as the three of them walked through the cobblestone streets.

"Yes I did," Fiara replied, "It was very informative," she added, feeling as if she needed to say a little more on the topic to make her thoughts seem more complete.

"Good, then you know about the buddy system," Diego put in as he walked along beside them.

"Yes," she replied simply from her position between the two of them as she wondered where they would go next with this topic. Would they try to find a group for her to join? Would they ask her to join one of their groups? 'Wait are they even in a group?' she asked herself as she subtly looked down at their wrists to see if either one of them had a bracelet. She then smiled slightly, for she was pleased to see that they both had bracelets on, and it made her even happier still when she noticed that they seemed to be identical as well, meaning they were in the same group.

The bracelets were made of simple strips of brown leather, which had been braded together to form a simple, one centimeter thick band that wrapped around their wrists. It was a simple design, but she sort of liked it. It was the sort of thing that could work for either a boy or a girl, so it was perfect to use as a group bracelet.

"Well, we realize that it can be hard for people to find a group that they're comfortable with on their first day," Santino began as Fiara looked up at him in suspense.

"So our group has a spare room that we sometimes allow new arrivals to stay in until they find a group of their own," Diego interrupted, with enthusiasm, "You'll need somewhere to stay until then, and you can't stay at the temp house anymore, so why not come stay with us until you do?"

Fiara stopped walking as she considered her reply. Even though in reality she had already decided that she wanted to agree to his proposal the second he offered it, she made it appear as if she was having a more difficult time deciding... just so she wouldn't seem so eager. After a few moments of feigned consideration, she then turned to Diego and said, "Very well," as she held her chin with her thumb and index finger, "I would love to come and stay with you."

"That's great!" Diego declared with enthusiasm as he excitedly turned in his steps, grabbing Fiara's hand as he whirled her about and began leading her in a new direction as he said, "It's this way... trust me, you're going to love it," Fiara chuckled slightly at Diego's playful spirit as she followed him with equal excitement, while Santino merely followed them at what seemed to be his usually slower pace.

It only took a few minutes to reach the outer edge of the city from where they were, and once there they continued on, moving deeper into the thick woods and brush of the forest around the city. According to Diego's explanation, most IPs preferred to live outside the city, so their movements would go unnoticed and uninterrupted by the other citizens, and sense all the members of their group were at least part time IPs, they decided to have their group home outside the city's limits. Apparently, like in our world, it was considered normal to have more than one occupation, if one so wished it, and a few members of their group, such as Diego and Santino, had other jobs to occupy their time when they weren't out on missions for their IP jobs.